Storm kills 84, razes homes in India, Bangladesh

A violent tropical storm killed at least 84 people and devastated more than 67,000 homes as it swept across eastern India and Bangladesh overnight, officials said Wednesday.

Winds of up to 120 kilometres an hour (75 mph) tore across northeast India and neighbouring Bangladesh around midnight on Tuesday, ravaging mud and tin-roofed homes, uprooting trees and bringing down electricity lines.

Officials in eastern West Bengal said 34 had keen killed in the north of the state, while the chief minister of neighbouring Bihar state put the death toll at 25. Two were reported dead in Bangladesh, including a police officer.

"The storm has left a trail of destruction everywhere," West Bengal minister of state for civil defence Srikumar Mukherjee said told local television from the spot.

"Most of the victims were buried under the collapsed walls of their homes."

The figures for the number killed and the damaged houses are expected to rise, officials said, as relief officials rushed to the affected areas where roads were blocked by fallen trees and phone lines were down.

The storm was an extreme form of what is locally known as a "nor'wester" - a weather pattern that develops over the Bay of Bengal during the hot months of the year, the West Bengal weather office said.

Nor'westers normally bring refreshing winds that blow across the low-lying region in March and April and lower temperatures, Gokul Chandra Debnath, director of the weather office, told AFP.

Mohammad Ibrahim, 40, a resident of Hematabad village in West Bengal, told AFP by phone that it was the worst storm he had ever seen.

"God has saved me, but taken away my home and everything," he said, adding that he been injured by a falling tree.

Saleja Khatun, a mother of three in one of the worst-affected villages Kiran Dighi, said her family had lost everything and that they, like thousands of others, had been without food since Tuesday night.

Relief has been rushed to the affected villages and homeless people were being shifted to local schools and government offices.

In Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar said 25 had been killed and the Disaster Management Department said at least 5,000 homes had been destroyed.

The families of victims in the state were offered compensation of 150,000 rupees (2,400 dollars).

In Bangladesh, northern Rangpur was the worst hit. District administrator B.M. Enamul Haq said two people had died, including a police officer who was crushed under a collapsed wall.

The storm demolished a police barracks, leaving dozens injured, two of whom remain in critical condition and have been sent to the capital Dhaka.

"The storm has damaged more than 11,000 mud, tin and concrete homes in Rangpur district alone - many of the houses were completely demolished." he added.

"It was a huge storm and we are still assessing the damage."

The cyclone came amid unseasonably high temperatures across much of northern India where the mercury is already above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in many areas.

The Press Trust of India reported that the number of heat-related deaths had risen to 42 in the eastern state of Orissa since the beginning of the month, after another five people died on Tuesday.

The United News of India reported another death on Tuesday in the western state of Gujarat.

The weather department on Tuesday said nine of India's 29 states were sizzling in a heatwave.

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